Rebel Without a Cause

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTg2ODcxOTU1OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzA3ODI1MDE@._V1_SX640_SY720_.jpg

Bibliographic Information:

Rebel Without a Cause

Director: Nicholas Ray
Producer: David Weisbart
Screenwriter: Stewart Stern
Irving Shulman (adaptation)
Story by Nicholas Ray
Starring: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo
Music by Leonard Rosenman
Cinematography: Ernest Haller
Editor: William H. Ziegler
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Copyright: 1955
ASIN: B004GJYRAU

Summary: This movie follows a teen from suburban Los Angeles, Jim, who is a delinquent and introduced to the audience as a drunk. When Jim is brought to the police station, he meets Judy and Plato. All three teens blame their unhappy homes for their bad behavior. Jim crosses a gang at his school and later, at Griffith Observatory, ends up in a fight with gang leader, Buzz. After disarming Buzz, Jim ends up agreeing to a chicken run against Buzz. The run ends badly and when Jim tells his parents about his involvement, his mother says they are moving again. Jim stands up to her and begs his father to stop her from pushing them around. After running out, Jim ends up with Judy and they go together to an abandoned mansion. Plato ends up at the mansion with a gun, after not finding Jim at his home. Later, the rival teens who were friends with Buzz show up and a battle ensues. The teens end up back at the Observatory, in a confrontation with the police.

Critical Analysis: Rebel Without a Cause is a classic tale of teens finding their place in society. The story resonates 60 years later as teens still struggle with their control of life and their own situation. Rebel was a top grossing film on its release and the fact that it still resonates now is significant. Empireonline.com places it in the top 500 movies of all time and rottentomatoes.com gives it a 98% fresh rating. Upon its release, there were questions about how it would influence youth who watched it, but those questions were dismissed. I believe that the resonance of a film 60 years after its release is proof of the quality of the subject matter. James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo were all praised for their roles in the film. A poignant fact that James Dean died before the release of the film adds to the mystique of the film. The locations in the Los Angeles area that were used for this film are landmarks now, partially because of their significance in the film.

Annotation: Teens labeled rebels have no place in their homes and find a place for themselves with their friends.

About the director: Nicholas Ray made movies for little more than a decade, but his films are among the most incisive, bizarre, and intelligent of the 1950s.

After his Westerns, Ray set to work on an original story about contemporary youth. Starring James Dean in his definitive performance, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) became one of the decade's most trenchant statements on suburban-bred teen alienation. Suffering from weak and/or negligent parenting, Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo's disaffected trio seethe with frustration and act out with misdirected violence and a pointless, lethal chickie run, while creating an alternative familial world. Ray's widescreen compositions reveal Dean's estrangement at home and the impossibility of the trio's imagined life in an abandoned mansion, while his masterful use of color, particularly Dean's red jacket, speaks to the emotional turmoil. With Dean's death days before its release, Rebel Without a Cause became a hit and earned Oscar nominations for Wood, Mineo, and Ray's story (Dean was nominated for East of Eden [1955]

You can learn much more at http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/107685/Nicholas-Ray/biography retrieved on 8/05/2015

Genre: Film, Realistic Fiction

Curriculum Ties: N/A

Interest Age: 13+

Challenge Issues: The library's policy for material's selection supports the addition of this film to our collection.

Reason Chosen for Collection: This film is a classic and shows that the frustrations of teens span generations and feeling like they are not listened to or understood is common. This film can really show teens that they are experiencing normal feelings in adolescence.

Citations:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/rebel_without_a_cause/ retrieved 7/31/2014.
http://www.empireonline.com/500/5.asp retrieved 7/31/2014.